Kaleidoscope
by MayTheAngelsProtectYou
Summary: A series of short 'drabbes' about the Winchester family. Mainly Sam and Dean as kids and teenagers. Lots of 'fluff' and angst. :
1. Chapter 1

**Hello, fellow Supernatural fans! I've been a lurker in this fandom for too long, and I have decided to try my hand at writing some fanfiction. Please enjoy this chapter and leave me some kind reviews! Love to all of you**

**-Grace**

It's winter, full-on darkness, the sky a sheet of velvet stretched drum-tight over the flatlands of Nebraska or South Dakota or wherever the Hell they are. Dad won't turn on the heat in the Impala, and neither of his sons dare complain. Instead they huddle together on the bench seat, Dean pressed against the cold glass of the window and Sam sitting next to him. It was somewhat of a treat to ride like this, all three Winchester boys chasing the fat yellow moon over the horizon, a Johnny Cash song thrumming on the radio. It makes Dean and Sam feel safe, something that neither of the boys feel very often. Not with hunting and monsters and wolves always at the door. In this dark, terrifying carnival, the Winchester boys have always been forced into the front seat.

"I'm sleepy, Dean."

Sam leaned against his older brother's shoulder, shaggy dark hair falling into his eyes.

"Get off me, Sammy!" Dean shoved Sam and the four year old blinked innocently up at him, his eyes wide and naïve.

"Stop it, boys," John snapped from the driver's seat. He turned up the radio, _Walk the Line _fading in and out of static. A few minutes passed, Dean stared out the window into the dark grasslands. Prairie flashed past, dark and full under the sky. Lonely farmsteads dotted the black stretch, a single truck stop flashed neon. A sudden kind of heartache filled Dean's chest, like metal bands around his heart. He wanted this moment, this wonderful moment of riding shotgun with his family, to last forever.

A few minutes later, Dean felt Sam curl up against him, the younger boy's head leaning against his older brother's shoulder. Dean just stared out the windshield as the Impala hurtled towards dawn. No matter what lay ahead for the Winchester family, they would face it together.


	2. Chapter 2

**A big shout-out to Adrian Nox and my sister, who kindly read and reviewed this story. And thanks to everyone who took the time to read. Hope that y'all enjoy this chapter. **

Dean is thirteen when he falls in love for the first time. Not just the usual staring-at-pretty-girls, schoolyard crush kind of thing. He's pretty sure that this is actually love. Whatever _love_ is. They're in some little hick town in Colorado, Dorado Falls, chasing some violent spirit-a miner who was killed back in the town's digging days, Dad swears-who's been wrecking havoc on the tourist industry. Her name is Hallie Winston, and she's perfect. Blonde hair that shines even on a cloudy day, eyes that sparkle like a windswept sea, a face like an angel…she's beautiful. When Dean closes his eyes at night, her image is burned into his mind. Of course, his infatuation is entirely innocent for now-anything more than that seems forbidden and out of reach. He doesn't see Hallie posing like the girls in the dirty skin magazines that he quickly leafs through in truck stops while Dad and Sammy are paying at the counter, all puckered lips and unrealistically huge breasts. He sees her standing in that high mountain field that they hiked out to, her face tipped upwards towards the bright sun. Her eyes are always sparkling and she's always smiling. She has kind eyes, fiery eyes. There's a kind of determination in those eyes and in the way that she carries her wiry build that he admires. That's what he thinks that love should be about, no matter how _beautiful_ someone is, it should be about how you feel. Of course, thirteen-year-old Dean has no way of knowing that in a few years he'll be driven wayward by every pretty girl he sees. That he won't give a damn about what a nice _personality _a girl has as long as she has boobs and doesn't look like a horse. But for now, he wonders if his Dad saw more than a pretty face in his mom. The way that John Winchester talks about Mary…it's like she was the light inside of his world. And Dean knows that she was.

The day that they have to leave town, the day after Dad leaves Sammy and Dean alone with a the usual arsenal and comes back four hours later with a broken wrist, is the day that Dean plans on kissing Hallie Winston. Actually, he just wants to say goodbye, but he's sure that it will turn into something more. He hopes it will, because he knows that he'll never see her again. He never sees any of them again, once the Impala hits the highway. That's the way things work in the Winchester family: you live, you love, you hit the road and you're gone.

They're standing under a streetlight, in that halo of yellow on the otherwise dark corner of Main Street and Birch Avenue. Dean holds both of Hallie's hands in his own, and tries to kiss her, but she pulls away.

"I'm sorry, Dean, but I'm not ready for this."

He's desperate and his heart is twisted and raw.

"I'm leaving," he tells her. "And I'm probably not going to see again."

He already knows, somehow, that this will become his mantra.

Her eyes turn sad, a cold ocean on a gloomy day.

"I know, Dean."

"I just…I just wanted to say that I really like you, Hallie." He's not sure what else to add, so he continues, "and you're really pretty and nice and…stuff."

Her smaller fingers clench his, and he then feels her sliding from his grip and she leans in and presses one little peck to his cheek and then she's gone, slipping away down the street and into the shadows beyond Pine Street. His heart twists violently, and suddenly all that Dean wants is someone to hold onto. So he walks slowly back to the Dorado Falls Motel and knocked three times on the door of room 15. Dad's out, probably getting smashed at the town's only bar, and Sammy is sitting at the little wooden table. Math homework is spread out across the warped surface, and a pencil is clenched in his fingers. Sam stares at a problem, frowns, then begins writing out the equation. Dean stands there for a moment, watching his younger brother with a strange mixture of sadness and pride. He shakes his head, shrugs off his jacket and puts it on the back of the chair.

"Let me tell you somthin, Sammy," Dean tells him, "Never fall in love."

His younger brother stares up at him with his usual trust and innocence, eyes wide and naïve. And for a second, it breaks Dean's heart to think that any of this will ever change. But for now Sam blinks innocently up at his older brother, the very picture of trust and obedience.

"Okay," he says.


	3. Chapter 3

It's Father's Day, and Sam is fatherless again. It's been nearly two weeks since Dad left to go track down a werewolf, leaving his two sons behind in a crappy motel in Glacier Springs, New Mexico. It's June, and baking hot. The school year is drawing to a close, and Sam is sitting at his desk in the fifth row of Miss Wilkin's classroom, staring at the bright blue sky. The landscape is flat, a tumble of low buildings giving way to paper-like desert. It's so unlike the craggy Rocky Mountains that they had been traversing only weeks earlier.

"Sam?" Miss Wilkins is standing above him, tapping one foot. "Why aren't you making a Father's Day card like the rest of the class?"

The boy starts slightly and stares up at his teacher with those big brown doe eyes that can make even the hardest-hearted principal soften.

His answer is whispered and ashamed.

"I don't have a father."

He doesn't mean that he doesn't have a father _ever_, he just means that he doesn't have a father _right now_. Dad is away hunting, and he won't be back for another week. By that time, Father's Day will have been long past. Besides, the Winchesters never celebrated those stupid Hallmark holidays, the ones that Dad swore were all fabricated by the card companies. A flimsy paper card would mean nothing to Sam's tough father.

Miss Wilkins sighed and smiled at him, even though her eyes looked sad.

"Why don't you make a card anyway, Sammy? Do you have an uncle or other man you want to give it to?"

There was Uncle Bobby and Pastor Jim, but they were at least a state away. Sam shrugged. Better to just go along with it. He hated breaking rules.

"Yeah."

So he grabbed a marker and started making his card.

_I hate New Mexico. _Dean Winchester tipped backwards in the folding chair, feet propped up on the flimsy formica table in the motel room. He had ditched school-what was the point of going anymore? It wasn't like he was going to be a doctor or a lawyer. Sammy, maybe. That kid had brains, no matter how dumb he acted sometimes. He had spent the day watching daytime TV, his trusty shotgun close at hand. He did feel a little guilty, now that the TV was off and the motel room dark and quiet. Dad would kill him if he found out that Dean had skipped school again.

_Whatever, _Dean told himself, _it's not like we're gonna stick around here._

Someone knocked three times on the front door, Dean stood to peer through the peephole. Sam stood on the doorstep, looking slightly bedraggled.

_Shit_, Dean thought. _Did I forget to pick him up?_

Evidently Sam didn't mind, because he walked inside with a slightly dull expression on his face. Dean knew at once that there was something off about his younger brother.

"Hey, Sam-squash, what's wrong?"

Sam slumped onto the sagging twin bed, tossing his backpack onto the quilt next to him.

"We made Father's Day cards in school today," said Sam quietly. He knew that he shouldn't be complaining, that Dean would probably say that he was being a bitch, but he felt suddenly quite lost and lonely.

"Oh," Dean replied. He stood there, looking awkward for a moment, then took a seat beside his brother. "Well, how'd it go?"

Sam pressed his lips together.

"I don't have a father, Dean."

Dean frowned.

"Well sure you do, Sammy."

"Not here," Sam muttered. Both brothers sat in silence for a moment, and then Sam pulled a crumpled piece of blue paper from his pocket.

"Miss Wilkins said I could make a card for someone I loved instead."

Dean nodded, expecting to see Bobby or Pastor Jim's name scrawled in thick black marker. But it was a different name written there, a very different one indeed.

"I made one for you, Dean."


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Thanks so so much to all who review and continue to read this story. ****d767468**

**and Adrian Nox and SemperFidelius…thanks so much for the kind words. You guys rock and roll. **

_Monday blues_. Dean used to complain about them all the time, back when he actually bothered _going _to school. Back when John wasn't gone so much, when life seemed full of possibilities. When getting good grades and staying out of trouble actually mattered. Now nothing did. Hilland Falls had to be the most boring place in South Dakota, and they had been here for three weeks. John had been gone for at least two and a half of those weeks, out in the woods, hunting what he said might be a wendigo. He had promised to come and get Dean when 'the time came', but the eldest Winchester was starting to doubt that. John had always liked having his right hand man, but he preferred working alone.

"Not good enough," Dean muttered, tossing an empty beer bottle into the nearest trash bin. He was walking along Grant Avenue, more of a meandering stroll than anything. A drunk meandering stroll. "Never freaking good enough."

Something about the alcohol made him feel worthless and hollow, after the pleasant buzz had worn off. Dean thought about the tequila and cheap beer that his father drank in truck stops and roadside bars, and wondered if when John felt empty and hollow like this, he thought about Mary. Dean tended to ruminate on whichever girl had broken his heart-or vice versus-recently. Right now it was Molly, a stunning redhead who had-though she had insisted otherwise-been dating several boys at once, including Dean. When they had 'consummated' their relationship in the back of her father's Toyota, Dean had been left with what could only be described as lovesick feelings for her. An angry and awkward confrontation with Molly's current boyfriend, a hulking linebacker for the local high school football team, had ended that. He was 16 and far from a virgin, but he wished he hadn't slept with her. It made everything so…intimate.

At least John had left behind a fake ID, unwittingly enabling his son to buy as many bottles of beer as the occasion called for. Usually, he was hooking up a couple of hot girls with a bottle of cheap vodka, but this was different.

Dean stopped on the bridge over Hilland River, watching the coursing water rush past a dozen feet below. He was taking a pull at his third beer when someone came up behind him.

"_Dean_?" The voice was incredulous and familiar. Dean jumped about a foot.

"Sammy? Is that you?"

His younger brother edged around to his side and stared at him.

"Dean, what are you doing? It's almost midnight?"

Dean chuckled and took a long gulp of beer. The alcohol burned a fiery trail down to his stomach.

"Are you _drunk_?" Sam's voice rose an octave in outrage and shock. He had never seen his brother intoxicated before, although it wasn't Dean's first round with Budweiser.

"Mostly," Dean replied. Sam snatched the beer bottle from hand and hurled it into the river.

"Hey!" Dean shouted. "What the Hell was that for?"

Sam glared at his older brother. He was so scrawny, for a twelve-year-old, Dean thought.

"I didn't know you even drank!"

_And so naïve_, Dean added silently.

"Everyone drinks, Sam. Dad does it."

Sam look distressed.

"Dad's not sixteen. This is illegal."

Dean shook his head and laughed at Sam's stammered protests.

"Right, Sammy, because I should really listen to _you_."

Sam face Dean with a stubborn expression plastered to his face.

"Yeah. Yeah, Dean, you should listen to me." His voice softened. "Come on, Dean. Please, just put the bottle down."

It was kind of pathetic, Dean thought, being piss-drunk on the side of the road, being scolded by a skinny eighth grader. Even through his alcohol-induced haze, he saw that what he was doing was a bad example for Sam. What if his brother thought that being drunk was okay, just because Dean did it?

"Okay, Sammy," Dean surrendered. "Let's go home."

They started off down the street, Dean stumbling a little where the ground was uneven.

"Shit." He muttered, tripping over a branch. Silently, Sam looped his arm around his brother's shoulders and they continued on like that down the two-lane road.


End file.
